Create, modify and delete items in QuickBooks Desktop

Item is anything that your company buys, sells or resells in the course of business, such as products, shipping and handling charges, discounts and sales tax (if applicable). It shows up as a line on an invoice or other sales forms. This article provides an overview of QuickBooks Desktop Items. It discusses different item types and ways to create, modify and remove items.

A service you provide to a customer. You can create services that are charged by the job or by the hour.

Inventory Part

A product you buy for the purpose of reselling. This item type isn't available if you haven't enabled the inventory during the Easy Step Interview or activated inventory on the Items & Inventory section in the Preferences.

Non-Inventory Part

A product that you:

Purchase but do not resell.

Sell but do not purchase.

Purchase and resell but do not stock in inventory or track as inventory.

Other Charge

An item type used for things like shipping charges, markups, or other line items that appear on your invoices.

Subtotal

An item type that adds up everything that comes before it. It provides a subtotal before you add shipping charges, markups or subtract any discounts or prepayments. In Enterprise 15 and later you can also subtotal Quantity, Price, Cost, and numeric custom columns.

Group

This item type can be used to enter a group of item (all of which must exist in the Item List) all at once. For example, if you frequently have a shipping charge accompanying another type of charge, you can create a group item that includes those two items.

Assembly

An assembly (available only in Premier and Enterprise editions) is a product you assemble from parts. It is tracked as an inventory item in QuickBooks.

Discount

A discount as a line item can not be given if this item type does not exist. You may have more than item that falls within this item type - for example, a discount for wholesale customers and one for volume purchase. When entering a discount item, you can indicate a flat rate or percentage.

Payment

If a payment is received (either a total payment or a partial payment as a deposit), you can indicate it as a line item using this item type.

Sales Tax Item

Create one of these item types for each sales tax authority for which you collect (available if sales tax is enabled).

Sales Tax Group

This is for multiple sales taxes that appear on the same invoice (available if sales tax is enabled).

You can create an item without leaving the Invoice or the Sales Form. Just enter the name of an item that has not been setup and click Yes (for Windows) or Set Up (for Mac) when you get the prompt asking if you want to setup the item.

If you are changing the item to an inventory part or an inventory assembly item, the "as of" date that you enter for the total value of the item must be a date that is after the date of the last transaction that uses the item.

Because the types of items that can be changed and what they can be changed to is limited, you cannot always change an item back. For example, if you change an Other Charge item to an inventory part item, you can no longer change its type.

Highlight the item you want to copy, then right click and choose Duplicate Item.

Changes the item’s information as necessary. The item’s name will be the same but the "DUP" will be appended to it. You can rename the item as desired. Remember though that two items cannot have the same name.

Click OK.

If you duplicate a main (or "parent") item, the new item will also be a parent item. If you duplicate a parent item that has subitems, only the parent item will be duplicated. The subitems will not.

If you duplicate a subitem, the new item will also be a subitem.

If you duplicate an inventory item, all item information will be copied except "On Hand" and "Reorder Point." Those fields will be set to "0."

Sometimes it is necessary to adjust amounts that are posted to specific items, rather than just accounts. Since adjustments done using Journal entries cannot use items, we need to use other transaction types such as Write checks for item-based adjustments.

With WIP job costing, for example, an item used during a long-term project (e.g. construction) and posting to an asset account may need to be replaced later by another item posting to an expense or Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) account. Similarly with Deferred Revenue or Advance Payments on a long-term project, items posting to liability accounts may need to be replaced later on with other items posting to income accounts. These changes may occur at the time the project is completed, for example, as revenue or costs may not be recognized until this point. Another example where this type of adjustment may be necessary is when the wrong sales tax item has been used. Sales tax liability adjustments post only to accounts and do not affect the items themselves so another transaction type (such as a Sales receipt) must be used.

Note: This type of adjustment works best for certain types of items, such as service, sales sax or other charge items. Caution should be used before using this method with non-inventory and especially with inventory type items.

To create a zero-dollar check (or Sales receipt), first we must create a Bank type account which will be used only for this type of adjustment.

From the List menu, choose Chart of Accounts.

From the Account menu select New.

Select the Bank radio button and click Continue.

Enter Journal Entries in the Account name field.

Click Save & close.

Next we need to create the adjustment itself. Use ONE of the following methods to enter the item adjustment.

To create a zero-dollar check:

From the Banking menu, choose Write Checks.

In the Bank account field, choose the Journal entries account.

Leave the Payee field blank.

Select the Items tab.

In the Item column, enter the item you want to reduce on the first row.

Enter the quantity of the item is entered as a negative figure.

In the Item column, enter the Item you want to increase on the next empty row.

Enter the quantity of the item as a positive figure.

Ensure the amount for each item is the same, resulting in a check with a total of zero dollars.

In the Edit Item window, change the item name to the same name as the item you’re combining it with.

Click OK.

Click Yes to confirm that you want to merge the two items under the same name.

Once you merge two items, you CAN NOT reverse it. All transactions, even in closed periods, will be under one item. It may also affect previous financial reports. The data associated with the merged item is removed from your records along with the item itself.

You CAN NOT combine more than two items at a time.

You CAN NOT combine items if both have sub-items. You must first remove the sub-items from the items you want remove.

You can revert a deletion immediately after you delete an item. If you perform any other action in QuickBooks, you wont be able to reverse the delete. If you delete an item by mistake, you must immediately go to Edit menu and choose Undo Delete.

If you are using QuickBooks Pro, you cannot create new inventory assembly items. You can view and edit inventory assembly items from the Item list in any edition of QuickBooks, and you can also view and edit the transactions that use them.

If you create an item as a Discount type, this item will appear as a negative amount when you use it on an invoice. Discount items should only be used to subtract a percentage or a fixed amount from a total or subtotal. Once you create an item as a Discount item, you cannot change it to another type. If you have created a Discount item by mistake, the best solution is to delete the Discount item and create a new item using a different type.

You can't use discount items on purchase orders or bills. They will not appear in the Item drop-down list. A workaround for this is to create an Other Charge item and enter a negative fixed amount (percentages will not work), for example, -10.00, in the Amount or % field.

You must create a subtotal item if you ever want to apply a percentage discount or surcharge to several or all items on an invoice. Because QuickBooks calculates percentages only on the line above, you must subtotal the items before entering a discount item that calculates on a percentage basis.

Price levels let you set custom pricing for certain customers or jobs. Once you create a price level and associate it with one or more customers or jobs, each time you create an invoice, sales receipt, sales order or credit memo for those customers or jobs, QuickBooks automatically pulls up the correct custom price for a customer or job. Discount items can be used on any invoice.